Blow that vuvuzela!

Over the weekend, Europe's football "experts" all agreed on one thing: The "beautiful game" is being ruined, and not by incompetent referees or prima donna players, but by the vuvuzela. Since Friday, football stadiums in South Africa have rocked with the blare of this plastic trumpet, but the joyous noise is not music to the ears of the pompous and overpaid "experts". One of them even said that the "Greek chorus" of fan singing, which he called "an important background aspect of the game", was in danger of being destroyed. After hearing that, I picked up my green vuvuzela, which a friend bought for me in Durban, and blew it long and hard.

There's much more to the vuvuzela than these anti-fun Puritans can imagine. Some of the funky techniques used by good players come from traditional African music that has been played for centuries on horns very much like these modern-day plastic versions. Blow that thing, baby!